The other day Burl Burlingame e-mailed me from Honolulu to ask for my snail mail address, and I supplied it.
Today, I got this box in the mail, and what do you think was in it?
The entire set of DVDs of “The Pacific,” with a commemorative booklet, several copies of his newspaper, and this great hat!
Is that awesome or what?
I don’t know whether Burl just got tired of hearing me whine about not getting to see it, or felt bad because HE got to see it ahead of time and interview the actors in it and just have all kinds of fun, on top of living in Hawaii, while we’re stuck in the land o’ Pollen, which is further proof that the universe is unfair…
But this sets everything in balance! This is great! I’ll watch them all in the coming days, and give y’all a full report.
And then, if Burl needs them back, I’ll send them back — but not after watching them at least twice.
Thank you, Burl! You’re a credit to the class of ’71…
Don’t get too excited. I’ve watched the first four episodes and so far my intentions are to watch the 5th then decided if I’m going to keep HBO for 5 more weeks or cancel it on Monday. Band of Brothers this is not. On a scale of 1-10, at this point I’ll give it a 2. As a comparison I’ll give Band of Brothers a 9.9.
S’truth — you’re about the 8th guy in line to get this review copy, so I hope it’s not all scratched up. And you’ll just have to live with the REVIEW COPY logo that appears on the screen. But it’s pretty intact.
The cap is from their debut screening. They gave them out like candy.
What you need to do is see it and then write about it in a serious fashion, which I know you’ll do. That’s why HBO blanketed press with this thing in the first place. And seriously, watch it twice. It’s better the second time and hangs together better in your head.
Those who have seen it have whined that they liked “Band of Brothers” better. My feeling — “BOB” is more likable, and “TP” is more upsetting. But it’s the chalk and cheese thing.
The Star-Bulletins were in there as filler. Since my paper is going out of business in a couple of months, maybe they’ll be collectors items.
Next, you need to read “Black Ocean” and write a book report!
Enjoy. Aloha.
And yes, I think it’s unfair that someone who would have written about the production in a serious manner for folks in South Carolina was prevented from doing so by corporate panic in the news business. It’s likely that The State covered “The Pacific” not at all.
It’s all yours. Happy birthday.
The only thing I found upsetting is so far the series doesn’t live up to the hype.
The Pacific is to Band of Brothers
what
The Thin Red Line is to Saving Private Ryan
and I walked out of The Thin Red Line and have seen Saving Private Ryan easily a dozen times.
Burl’s wicked cool, but you need to lose the hat….
What’s with you and hats? I like hats.
And Walter — OW! That’s way brutal! The biggest movie disappointment I’ve seen in the last 15 years was “The Thin Red Line.” Awful stuff.
As for comparing — I’m not going to watch this expecting it to be “BoB.” That was the best thing ever made for television. I’m just going to compare it the History Channel and war films I’ve seen over the years. That’s a fairer standard. If it rises above, great. If not, I bet I’ll still enjoy it…
I like hats, too, but baseball caps remove IQ points so quickly. How about a nice trilby?
http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/04/07/retrosexuals_silliness/index.html
Someday Walter will learn that nothing ever lives up to its hype.
Job One for a media reviewer — and many still don’t get it — is to judge a work for what it is, not for what you’d like it to be. “Pacific” isn’t a “BoB” clone. It’s quite different. “BoB” was about bonding in training and under fire, “Pacific” is about the dehumanizing aspects of vicious combat.
You want to see me in that kind of hat, check out this video back here.
And why should anyone think these “retrosexuals” are imitating Don Draper? Maybe they’re imitating me…
Maybe because Don Draper wouldn’t be caught dead in Kenny Rogers facial hair?
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Burl actually a lot of things live up to its hype. For movies, I can think of several, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, and Apollo 13 exceeded the hype. The new Dodge Challenger lives up to the hype. The Richard Petty Driving Experience I went through lived up to the hype.
Unfortunately The Pacific doesn’t come close to the hype… not in the least. The previews showed combat, where is this combat? I’ve talked to others and everyone talks about how much of a bust this series is. One even said it made the Americans appear weak and that this series is a slap in the face for those who were actually there. This could have been an amazing war series, but the first four episodes are too short, far from anything resembling the war in the Pacific… four episodes and we’ve seen around a total of 30 minutes of actual fighting and 3:30 of pure crap and fluff. Episode 3 was nothing but a love story between a GI and an Australian girl. Episode 4 was nothing but showing how the Americans were mentally unstable. Like I said before, this series is closer to The Thin Red Line and again I am feeling the urge to walk out (or in this case cancel HBO), but I’m toughing it out and hoping that it takes a dramatic turn for the better… I’m giving it one more week before I pull the plug and find something better to do on Sunday evenings… maybe start watching reruns of Ax Men.
I attempted to watch one episode a second time… that lasted about 20 minutes into it before I turned it off.
At this point of the series I’m reminded of Roger Ebert’s review of Rob Reiner’s movie North:
“I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”
Hey, Burl–it’s clear you’ve staked out your fashion territory, and it’s nowhere near Don Draper….The Big Lebowski, maybe….
Alas, my rugs never tie the room together.
I thought you wore your own hair. 😉
I, for one, am becoming a German Nihilist–cool clothing…Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn…
Me, I’m waiting to hear how Walter handles the next four hours of “The Pacific,” which is pretty much non-stop combat. Apparently it ain’t a war movie unless it’s got lots of bang-bang.
Personally, I very much liked the third episode. It was the first real attempt in the series to get some sense of the Marines as human beings. You need that in order to care about what happens to them in combat.
Battle Cry did that in New Zealand, this series does it in Australia.
This partially addresses what I had seen as a weakness, which was the lack of training sequences. It’s important to experience characters in normal life, outside the the urgency of kill-or-be-killed, for the viewer or reader to be truly involved in the combat scenes.
Sounds like the next four hours will be better than the first four… but it won’t take much to do that.
Burl, it helps… Episode 3 we saw one shot, at a cow. Episode 4 we saw a couple… counting the one where the full frontal nudity guy unsuccessfully tries to eat his 1911. Nothing makes a good war movie like the Americans appearing either weak or nuts.
Four episodes in and I still can’t give you a main character’s name.
Let’s not forget that the series is based on memoirs, not a story arc imposed by fiction.
So the guy who wrote Episode 3 should have just started it out, “Dear Penthouse…”
Uh, Walter, the little romance in Australia actually happened. This is a memoir.
Wait a minute — you’re saying the letters in Penthouse DIDN’T really happen? Whoa — I’m going to have to rethink a lot of stuff…
Seriously, while I think people who watched that episode WITHOUT seeing what went before my see it as gratuitous sex. Me, I saw it as very important in terms of being an affirmation of life after what the 1st Marines had been through on Guadalcanal. Something that allows a guy to embrace life again after wading through death, so that he can go do it again.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Just hoping tonight’s episode is better, or the hammer drops.
I gave up on NASCAR after being a fan who attended 4-6 races per year for nearly 15 years until a couple years ago… my Sunday afternoons are now free for other things. Tonight is the determining episode to see if my Sunday evenings will now be freed up for the next couple of months.
Okay, I’m keeping HBO for another week. Much better, but I wish these episodes were more than 50 minutes long… well the ones like tonight.